World News

Following a two-year battle with cancer, the long-standing President of Venezuela, Hugo Chavez, has died, his vice-president has announced.

Mr Chavez, who won another six-year term as Venezuela's president in October 2012, was one of the most visible, vocal and controversial leaders in Latin America, however he had not appeared in public since he returned to Venezuela last month after cancer treatment in Cuba.

Soldier turned politician, Hugo Chavez divided opinion across the world - a close ally to Cuba's Fidel Castro and publicly controversially calling President George W...

More than 50,000 people are expected to gather in St Peter's Square later today for Pope Benedict XVI's final general audience the day before he becomes the first pontiff in 600 years to step down since Pope Gregory XII abdicated in 1415.

Papal audiences are normally held inside a Vatican hall in the winter, however there has been such a lot of interest that the event is being held outdoors. 50,000 tickets have been requested, but as many as 200,000 people may attend and people have even been seen running in order to get a prime spot for this unprecedented event.

The Pope...

A hot air balloon exploded on Tuesday morning and plunged into a sugar cane field west of Luxor, Egypt killing 19 tourists on board, three of which are reported to be from the UK with a further in hospital.

Luxor governor, Ezzat Saad reported the casualties included British, French, Belgian, Hungarian and Japanese nationals and nine tourists from Hong Kong.

Three survivors of the crash were hospitalised.

The balloon was reported to have hit a high pressure electrical cable and a cylinder on board explosion. Eye witnesses reported people jumped out of the balloon...

The UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) has estimated 13,000 mostly Rohingya people have fled Burma's Rakhine State since an outbreak of violence in 2012, and close to 500 have died at sea when their boats broke down or capsized.

However Myanmar's Deputy Minister for Immigration and Population, Kyaw Kyaw Tun yesterday stated that the Rohingyan people are not included in Myanmar's more than 100 national races.

"There has never been a Rohingya race in Rakhine State. According to the censuses collected in the colonial period, in 1973 and in 1983, the country's ethnic groups...